Normal
by QueenAnne
Summary: Normal is your watchword now. LoganVeronica, futurefic. Drabble.


Title: Normal is the watchword (1/1)

Date: 4.21.06

Author: QueenAnne

Summary: Sometimes you wonder if they'll fight so much they get a divorce. That's what everyone else seems to do. Only you don't realize that normal for everyone else is not normal for _your_ parents. (Logan/Veronica)

Disclaimer: Rob Thomas, etc., etc.

Most people you know don't have normal lives. Your mom would like it to be that way, only she's always commenting "out of the frying pan, into the fire," and looking with a glare at your dad.

She's always glaring at your dad.

In fact, she glares a lot. And smiles. And smirks. Somehow, you think, somewhere along the line, your mom came from a family chock full of facial expressions. She can always use other people's facial expressions against them, too, which sucks because last week when you said you were at a Student Council meeting, you were really downtown getting coffee with...well, suffice it to say, she caught you.

And she caught dad the same day, doing something stupid, from the sound of it, so you don't feel so bad. The woman has eyes in the back of her head. And if she's not around, she's got other people spying on you. You know she does.

A couple months ago, a weekend they were out of town, you had your latest guy come over. Only you made him park two blocks down, walk one block over, wait for you to pick him up, then sneak him in the back door. You kept all the lights off, not for the mood, but because you were pretty sure that they had someone watching you at that very moment.

You whine about the fact that your mom doesn't trust you with guys. You look to your dad to back you up, since you normally side with him. You're the oldest. You're his baby. This is how it is supposed to work. Only when you try, he says, "deal with it, kid. It's genetics."

You understand what he means by genetics because you've heard their stories slowly over the years. Apparently, most of his stories involve your mom getting ticked at him for dating what she tends to call "dumb blonde bimbos." According to the legends and lore that you have heard from your 'uncles' and your grandparents, your dad dated. A lot. All the time. Sometimes more than one at a time. Your mom's stories always involve him ditching ditzes for him. Your parents are both great storytellers, and they never tell the same one. Even if the story is the same, the plot, the dialogue, the resolution are rarely the same. Somehow, she always saves his ass in her story. In his, she's just really annoying.

You have heard the stories and wonder if they're really true. If your mom and dad got together the first time because your dad punched some secret agent. If instead of getting together again, he just proposed with something along the lines of "don't you think we should just get married?" You've heard enough from them and the rest of your family to believe that they seemed to have plenty of fun and remained pissed at each other all of the time.

In public, they rarely fight. You think this is weird, because at home, they fight a lot. And your friends' parents fought, too. They all fought. And that is why you have approximately four friends whose parents are still together. And two are Catholic, and you're not sure but you think that doesn't count.

People hear the fun and games and general ass-kicking adventure in their stories and know your mom and dad pretty well, they think, and you bet they assume they are perfect. They have the right amount of love and flirtation in public. He makes fun of her and she pokes at him and they kind of make everyone gravitate toward them.

This is why you expect your world to implode any day. This is why you expect them to fight one last time and declare it over. There is always yelling in the house. Granted, yelling about anything. You have two siblings. Yelling. You have lots of friends. Yelling. Your mom and dad exist. Yelling. Your mom and dad are married. Yelling. Someone burned the popcorn. Yelling.

Recently, you've gotten older, wiser. You're a whole seventeen, and you one day confess to your boyfriend, if that's what he is now, that you worry that they yell so much that one day, they'll get tired of it and just divorce already.

You realize that's callous, since his parents did that already. But then he looks at you oddly, and says, "seriously," in his WASPish, laid back voice, "your parents are so in love it's...weird. Trust me, they're not getting divorced any time soon. Have you seen the way your dad looks at your mom?"

So you begin to notice. Little things. They fight over dinner. Your dad has managed to burn not one, but two separate meals in twenty four hours. You all go out. He makes fun of her. She makes fun of him. Then she kind of grins, and says something about liking surprise gourmet dinners. He groans.

When he tells a story about high school and how much he loved to drive her crazy, mock her, make her insane, you think that's weird. She says, "In hindsight, how could I not date him? It was so obviously a match made in heaven." He points out that Neptune--that's where they both grew up--is hell. And she says, again, "Out of the frying pan and all that, Logan."

When she says his name, she says it pretty quickly.

Your dad has eight hundred ways to say your mom's name. Sometimes he draws it out to annoy her. Verrrooonica. Sometimes it comes out really clipped, especially when she's yelling at him from another room and you're all mad because she won't stop but you can't understand her. Vrnca. Sometimes he doesn't even need the whole thing, just a quick sound to get her attention. Cuh.

He doesn't really say it in a way you would call sweet. Or romantic. In fact, they don't seem very romantic to you.

They seem...like your parents. They're married. Sometimes they hug or kiss in the kitchen or whatever. But they fight more than that, so you're really not sure that they are okay. That they do love each other.

Then last week, you're snooping around in their room, and you're not thinking much about it, becuase your mom's cell phone charger is around there and 'ew, oh my good lord gross' flashes through your head because there is a condom wrapper. There is a box, in fact. An empty box.

Ew.

Oh my good lord.

Gross.

You shake your head a little.

Then the next day, your dad tells a story at dinner about a run-in with your mom in which he bashed her headlights out. She glares and calls him a psychotic jackass. He smirks and says, "Foreplay, Verrrrooooonica. Foreplay."

She glares at him even more, her face all scrunched up, and drawls out his name in the annoyed voice she gets, and you three gag because that's what you're suppose to do.

Suddenly, in the light of the tire-iron-foreplay revelation, you don't worry when they fight anymore.

In fact, it kind of gives you something to look forward to in the future. It kind of makes normal...cool.

4.21.06 / QueenAnne / _usual disclaimers apply_


End file.
